In particular, this Sveum quote made me wonder: “There’s obviously going to be some guys available this winter and you’ve got to sit down and decide what the plan is. It’s not like we’ve got a lot of guys coming except the (Anthony) Rizzos, (Brett) Jacksons and (Junior) Lakes, guys with tons of upside. So we do obviously have to fix some things.’’

It almost sounds as if Sveum is saying management doesn’t have a plan, but more likely Sveum is talking about options regarding specific free agents available this winter. Problem is, there won’t be much of a choice once you factor in Theo Epstein’s intention to pay only for what a 27- or 28-year-old will do instead of what a 32- or 33-year-old already did.

But the damning part was Sveum’s assessment of the Cubs’ minor league system, even if he might not have meant it that way.

Remember, about two weeks ago as the Cubs struggled to hit like a major league team, Sveum remarked that there would be conversations with management about calling up Rizzo. Soon, seemed to be Sveum’s desire. Hurry, he seemed to be telling management. Wake up, Sveum seemed to be indicating, because this bunch stinks and he had the decimal points to prove it to the decimalheads running the baseball operations.

But Rizzo wasn’t coming up, not with service time an issue that could cost the Cubs millions in early arbitration and free agency. Now, though, Sveum is telling everyone that Rizzo himself isn’t enough, and he still wouldn’t be enough even if he brought a couple playmates with him.

After Sunday’s muscle-flexing, Rizzo has 20 homers, 53 RBIs and an OPS of 1.143 for the Iowa Cubs. You can understand why Sveum would want to put that in his dogbreath lineup.

But it sounds as if Sveum hasn’t seen Jackson’s and Lake’s numbers. Try this:

Jackson is hitting just .265 with 8 homers and 25 RBIs for Iowa, but has struck out 80 times in 230 at-bats. He would get killed in the majors the way Adrian Cardenas is, and Cardenas was hitting a lot better than Jackson when he was promoted.

Lake is a shortstop/third baseman playing for Double-A Tennessee. His stats tell you he has some work to do with the glove, and if you can’t hit .300 in Double-A, you’re probably not going to do it in the majors anytime soon.

So, to recap, Sveum would’ve settled for Rizzo alone two weeks ago, but things apparently are so bad now that the manager wants more, and the names he named are more suspects than prospects whether he realizes it or not.

In other words, Sveum seemed to be pleading with management for some hope, but it appears to be more hopeless than Sveum might’ve first thought.

But I’ll say this: Sveum seems to be getting Cubbed at an efficient pace.

The University of Illinois' rescinded job offer to a professor and a controversy over a faculty blog at Chicago State University helped land the two schools on a 2014 "worst of" list for student and faculty free speech rights.

Rep. Aaron Schock billed taxpayers at least three times for a total of more than $14,000 in private air travel last fall, including for a trip to a Chicago Bears football game, The Associated Press has learned.